Sunday, August 16, 2009

Titular Colonicity Revisited -- Kinda

I've blogged before about titular colonicity, the use of colons in titles of academic work. It's how you know an academic field has "matured," its greater reliance on colons to sound, well, more academic. Apparently people pay attention not only to colons, but also question marks. This study looks at the use of question marks in journal article titles. They found "significant increase" in the use of question marks in studies of physics, life sciences, and medicine.

Okay, so they've looked at colons and question marks. Periods don't make much sense, so that leaves me an intimate study of the semicolon in titles of academic studies.

Hey, you gotta publish, or perish, even if it's dumb publishing.

No comments: